Although the row over the sacking of government drugs adviser David Nutt continued to dominate the headlines, many health correspondents sought their fixes elsewhere this week.

Such was the mixed bag of stories on offer that for once readers stood a good chance of reading a different health story in every paper - but with a twist.

The Daily Mail revealed the former scourge of British seamen - scurvy - was making a comeback among schoolchildren in England

If you read The Guardian you would have been told to worry about the quiet launch of the Department of Health’s review of the cap on private patient income for foundation trusts.

A leader warned that the cap must be defended otherwise the next - potentially Conservative - government will have a “free hand” to “rewrite the rules”.

Meanwhile if you glanced at The Daily Telegraph you would discover that GPs were to receive a letter this week from the European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control, telling them (once again) to stop dishing out antibiotics like sweets.

Far from being a “Europeans tell the UK what to do” story, it succinctly explained why “pushy patients” needed to reign in their demands for the drugs. But such clarity was not universal.

Sticking with drugs, readers of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday would have found themselves in danger of being confused about statins. The cholesterol lowering drugs were touted in the Mail on Sunday as being able to “protect against the worst effects of seasonal influenza” but in its daily sister they were linked to “sleep disturbances, memory loss, sexual dysfunction, depression and a rare lung disease”.

The prize for best headline goes to the News of World. In a departure into serious journalism it reported the findings of the public accounts committee inquiry into healthcare associated infections under the banner “Staphylo cock-up as bug rises”.

And the Daily Mail revealed the former scourge of British seamen - scurvy - was making a comeback among schoolchildren in England, possibly due to poor diets among lower income groups.

Luckily, it explained that even a portion of chips from a fast food restaurant should contain enough vitamin C to ward off the disease.